"We do not have a country called Egypt," says Taharqi, shaking his head. "But yes, I am from the Kingdom of Kush, south of here. If I have my mental map appropriately located, Stygia would border the Exiled Lands, and you would need to either cross it or go around it to get to Kush.

"My country has a strong ethnic division—the Chagas, descendants of old Stygian conquerors, are the ruling caste. The Gallahs are the majority and make up the commoner caste. I am Chagan, but—I joined the Gallah revolutionaries. They want a ruler of their own people, and I have... seen... what my people do to them. It is not right." He shakes his head again. "I became one of their leaders, and spearheaded an operation—but we were betrayed." He looks down at his feet and squeezes his hands into fists. "It was someone I trusted, it's my fault, I should have seen..." Sigh. "Many of my friends were executed. I was exiled, to serve as an example. A fate worse than mere execution, they said. Cowards. They nailed me to a cross and left me to die, of thirst or of whichever carrion animals first got to me." He lifts his palms up to look at them, and there are very faint scars marking where the nails must have been.

"Christ."

A shrug. "A man named Conan, Cimmerian if he was from anywhere, found me and freed me."

"—wait I think that is the man who freed me, too."

"I have the impression he finds the idea of exile really distasteful and made this a habit. So I suppose we owe him our lives."

"Well. I'm certainly glad he did - how is there a meaningful population of exiles if 'exile' means 'exile and also crucifixion until agonizing death' -"

"It doesn't always, I believe we are more exception than rule."

"...better than the alternative, I suppose. I rarely enjoy shooting people, but I would rather like to shoot the people who do this."

Taharqi grins and Raziya nods very vehemently.

"Stygia and Kush are allies, at least ostensibly. What with the Kushite rulers being of Stygian descent and all. They have a pharaoh, usually just the firstborn son of the previous pharaoh but Set sometimes likes to choose someone else."

Tintin nods. "- in a literal sense, rather than 'the high priest and the pharaoh had a disagreement and the priest had him assassinated' - sorry, my brain still hasn't fully internalized the literal existence of gods."

"Well, as far as I have been able to tell it was literal but my level of information is not beyond being tricked. And the pharaoh is the high priest, so that particular scenario will not happen."

"Ah, the Henry VIII gambit. - king who made himself high priest of the local religion to consolidate his power and divorce his wife without clerical permission, mostly irrelevant, sorry."

Taharqi laughs. "I think pharaohs have been high priests for as long as they have been around but I am not sure of this."

"Seems plausible. Anyway, what else do I want to know - hmm, you wanted to overthrow the Chagas and bring power back to the Gallahs - Stygia is ruled by a despotic pharaoh - I imagine most places are not notably better than this, you mentioned Cimmeria and Shem and Darfar but if one of those is a politically stable utopia I'll be surprised."

"They are not. Darfar is also south of Stygia, to the east of Kush, while Shem and Cimmeria are both to the north of the Styx—if I am correct in where we are Shem should be to the west and south of here, while Cimmeria should be to the west and north. Darfar as a whole is... probably not an extremely nice place. They worship the Outer God, Yog, who is also called a demon even by the other gods, and he is the bloodthirstiest and most violent of them. At least of the gods I know of. He demands frequent human sacrifices, and commands cannibalistic rites in his honour."

Raziya makes a queasy face, but does not seem surprised or like this is news.

"I believe the country itself is more... civilised... than that would imply, but the local Darfari tribes are very often entirely taken to worship of Yog."

"...well, that's not good. What about Shem and Cimmeria, do you know any fun facts about them?"

"Shem used to be part of the Stygian Empire in ages past, but now they are a country only in name—they are mostly made up of loosely allied city-states or tribes. The eastern groups are usually more nomadic, but not entirely, and they tend to rotate around the rivers and oases of their lands. They have gotten pretty rich since the fall of the Empire because they border many different countries and serve as a trade hub of sorts for them all. They also have lots of mercenaries, out of necessity to protect their merchants, but it does give them a... reputation."

"Where did you even learn all of that, I barely know the names of the countries around Stygia," wonders Raziya.

"Chagan upbringing," explains Taharqi, "plus the rebellion later required a lot of knowledge of the region. Many powers are interested in what will come out of these civil wars in Kush."

"Even Cimmeria?"

"No, and thus why I know less about it than the other countries around here." He looks at Tintin. "Cimmeria is pretty far, relatively speaking, and I was surprised to find Cimmerians around here. I am pretty certain they do not border the Exiled Lands. Their reputation is of being strong warriors and fiercely nationalistic, and the few Cimmerians I have met reinforce this notion, but I do not know much more than that."

"Good to know... so far Shem sounds like the least, uh, objectionable of the local nations."

"I like Kush," Taharqi says, shrugging.